1930. Contents: The Life and Deeds of Rama; The Lesser Gods; Brahma, the Creator; Time, the Fruit of Actions and the Creator; Shiva, the Destroyer God; Vishnu, the Preserver God; The Hindu Triad-Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva; Brahm, the Supreme ...

"The range of Manas performance traditions captured here is immense. What is wonderful and remarkable is that each is presented vividly, with careful ethnographic detail, so that they become living traditions to the reader.

The Life of a Text offers a vivid portrait of one community's interaction with its favorite text-the epic Ramcaritmanas-and the way in which performances of the epic function as a flexible and evolving medium for cultural expression. Anthropologists,